


Decorating a Christmas Tree

by FreakyPseudWriter



Series: Mini Series Christmas 2020 [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28336458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreakyPseudWriter/pseuds/FreakyPseudWriter
Summary: Yamato never decorated a Christmas tree before. Unfortunately, you don't seem to be aware of that fact.
Relationships: Yamato | Tenzou/Reader
Series: Mini Series Christmas 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2070360
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Decorating a Christmas Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, welcome back to the fourth part of my Christmas series ^^
> 
> Yamato also needed some love! I'm just happy I now managed to finish all five of my fics for this series on time, thus, I'll make it short. I hope you guys I like this fic as well and enjoy the holidays as much as you can! :D
> 
> See you all next tomorrow! :)

Yamato never quite understood the obsession with Christmas. He was simply puzzled by the sudden increase of people in the surrounding malls, the many Christmas songs playing on the radio, and the many colorful, blinking decorations on every available surface. There was so much going on every time that he preferred the silent traditions of Christmas over the louder ones: drinking eggnog, watching appropriately-themed movies, and spending time with his friends.

Thus, he understandably felt nervous when you decided it was time to put up Christmas decorations in your shared flat. He had seen some people going absolutely overboard with the tinsel, the lights, the ornaments and he had no idea how you would react if the decorations became an overstimulation for his senses and he would speak up about it. Even after the three years of a relationship and the few months of living together, he had no idea what type of “christmas-enthusiast” you would be when it came to the decorations.

Well, kind of. Of course, he had the inkling of an idea. After all, it had been _three years_ (which was already two and a half years longer than Yamato expected), but still. Would your behavior change—now—that you two were living together?

Not much, he found out. The first decorations sneaked their way into the living room at the start of December: Candles, hanging stars lightening up the windows, a wreath with four candles sitting on the coffee table, a glass of dried orange slices, cinnamon and anise giving the entire flat a small tinge of christmas already. Nothing big, but definitely noticeable. 

Then, you started talking about choosing the perfect christmas tree: Which exact height, which width, and what kind of pine should get a temporary home in their flat. All these kinds of things were things Yamato never worried about before, but when he found himself out in the forest just one week before Christmas, watching you with an axe slung over your shoulder and inspecting the pines around you, he found himself enamoured. 

He reached out, his fingers touching the rosy sheen on your cheeks. You turned your head, at first looking like you were about to laugh, but then you met his eyes and something changed. Your expression softened to nothing more than a weak smile and a weak shine in your gaze. When you touched the back of his hand, Yamato had to hold back the sudden tears in his eyes. 

How did he get here? How did he deserve to be treated like this? How did he get the pleasure of spending his time with you? 

“Hey.” Your smile softened even more, the icy air making you even more beautiful in his eyes. “Everything alright?”

Yamato nodded. His tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth, but there was always time for a little rumble in the back of his throat when you took his hand away from your cheek. Just the faintest bit of protest, but you didn’t let go when you continued on the thin path between the trees, so he wouldn’t complain too much. 

Outside, stomping through the snow, far away from all the noise of the city, Yamato followed you deeper into the forest. He had no idea how much time passed, just that his hand in yours was warm and safe no matter what would happen. 

Though, the journey had to come to an end sometime, and this journey ended when you stopped in front of a small pine just the height of Yamato and maybe double his width and told him: “That’s the one.”

“Yes?” It was a pine, just like all the others. Yamato didn’t see a huge difference to the others around, but if you said you wanted this tree, then you would get it—as simple as that. A simple crook of his fingers made you hand over the axe. The worn-out handle laid nicely in his hands when Yamato readied his stance, raised the axe, and brought the tool down in a wide arch. 

_Whack._ Vibrations flashed through his hands when the axe hit the trunk. It was fine, he was used to it. _Whack._ He hadn’t worked with an axe for some time, but the muscle memory came back easily. _Whack._ Plus, the tree trunk wasn’t that thick, so it only took Yamato a few good hits to make the pine shake, tremble faintly, and for it to slowly fall in the opposite direction. 

When you came closer to press a little peck to his cheek, he definitely appreciated the experience even more. Outside in the forest, his feet were cold and his nose was running ever so slightly, but with you by his side helping to carry the tree back to the sale station to wrap it up, covered in the scent of pine and the feeling of resin on his fingers, the experience was even better than he would’ve believed.

~ X ~

Decorating the tree was a whole different story. Strangely enough, you seemed to be perfectly fine with Yamato doing the entire creative work. Even though you _knew_ he had never done this before. At least, he believed you knew that, with him opening about his childhood in the orphanage and the military and…

Well, there weren’t that many happy memories when he was a child. Especially not around the holidays.

Thus, he was thoroughly confused, even overwhelmed at the sight of the packages, bags and the sheer amount of brightly colorful tinsel you placed in front of his feet.

“What am I…?” He shrugged, all the while you were busy pulling on your thick jacket. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Decorating the tree, _duh_.” With the roll of your eyes came a teasing grin that softened the blow of your words. “I have to go out, get some Christmas shopping done. If you would be so kind to maybe get started…?”

“With what?”

“With the decorations?” The question came back, a full echo getting caught in all the Christmas decorations. “I trust you, no worries there. You can send me updates if you aren’t too sure about anything or have any questions!”

“But…”

“It’s okay!” You were already halfway out of the flat, with a flying scarf, bag and hair. “You got this! Love you!”

And with that, you were gone, leaving Yamato behind in the heap of decorations he had no idea how to use or where they were supposed to go. Sure, he had a loose understanding of everything, but actually hanging all these quite _delicate_ porcelain and glass ornaments into the tree with his thick, clumsy fingers…

The possibility of destroying more ornaments than putting them up into the tree was too high to his liking.

No choice though. Yamato sighed, his eyes raking over the packages. Where to start, where to start…

The tinsel? Or the ornaments? Maybe the lights?

Probably. At least one thing Yamato could rely on: just a little bit of logic. If he placed the electrical candles first, then he could build everything around the lights. Slowly, he reached for the bag helpfully tagged with a mark in your handwriting and got one candle out. At the lower end was a clip, obviously meant to secure the candle at the pine’s branches.

With the candle in hand, he turned to the tree once more. Was it just him, or did the pine suddenly look a little bit daunting? Just the tiniest bit like it would turn into a monster all too soon, with just one misplaced decoration…

You would be sad if the pine wasn’t one bit decorated when you returned. Yamato sighed, then selected a thick branch sticking right into his direction. One snap and the candle stood proudly up, the glassy flame not one bit covered by other branches or obstructions.

_Nice._

_Only 24 more to go._

Slowly, but with more and more determination, Yamato placed the candles. Actually, it was pretty easy. Just select the branches with free space and it was done. Amd actually, the candles were also pretty light. Suspiciously light. Didn’t they need batteries or something?

With the two last candles in hand, Yamato reached for the bag and groaned in misery. There, at the very bottom. Another, smaller bag with a remote and batteries.

Of course. A sigh welled up in his chest. Of course.

Nothing to be done about it but removing the candles and putting the batteries in. In the process, he had to select new branches as the candles weighed more now and pulled the branches down. But now, he knew what to look out for, so Yamato was quicker and more secure in his choices.

When he was done with the candles (again), he took a step back. Yeah, he assumed the candles were alright, but better be safe than sorry. Yamato checked his phone out of habit before unlocking and taking a photo of the tree. Another few swaps of his fingers over the screen, and the image was on its way to you, hopefully finding approval.

He didn’t have to wait too long for an answer. Almost instantly, the speech bubble popped up, vanished, popped up again.

Then…

_< 3: Looks gorgeous! Found the batteries?_

_Yams: yes. Too late tho, was nearly done when I noticed._

_< 3: oh no, sorry babe. I always take them out to save the life of the poor batteries_

_Yams: no worries. I survived ;^)_

_< 3: good to know ;D sorry have to get going. I believe in you! <3_

Always with your words of encouragement. A smile flashed over his face, only known to him when he had accidentally opened the selfie camera when he wanted to take another shot of the tree with his thumbs-up in the foreground. Gods, were the dark shadows below his eyes really as deep as it seemed like? Hopefully not.

What else? The lights were up, but did the tinsel come into play now or only at the end? It would make sense, he told himself as he hesitantly reached into the plastic basket filled to the brim with red, golden, silver, green, blue and purple tinsel, to deck the tree now in all kinds of colors and hang the ornaments last. Maybe?

To be honest, Yamato had no idea what he was doing as he tried to arrange the tinsel over the branches. His only saving grace was that he could comfortably walk around the pine and hold all the tinsel in his arms. Yes, all of it. He had no idea what kind of color scheme you wanted to go with, so wasn’t it better to put all of it up?

The end result, Yamato thought to himself when he took a step back and wiped the sweat off his forehead, wasn’t too bad in his opinion. Sure, the tree seemed a bit overloaded, but the colors were nice? Possibly.

Yamato just hoped they didn’t clash too much.

Next, the ornaments. Finally, a part he could get behind. He had watched you order some new ones over the internet a few weeks back and spotted the package instantly when he went through the odd assortment. These ones had to go on the tree, for sure. Then, there were some nice glassy ones. Completely see-through, with golden lines swirling all over the surface, maybe the size of his fist. These ones were also hung very carefully into the tree.

_The tree is crowded now. Mhm…_

_Maybe I shouldn’t have put that much tinsel up…_

_Or I should have gone with the ornaments first._

Oh well, what was done was done. Yamato shrugged, before throwing himself into the task he had first dreaded and now enjoyed immensely. He never had the creative liberty to go all out on something, may it be a finger painting on paper or the green branches of a Christmas tree.

There were big and small glass ornaments, smaller straw figurines, funny ornaments in the form of donuts, leaves and books, a little bit of glitter to top it all off. Everything was so tempting, begging Yamato to hang them into every available space he could find.

And then. Oh, then. The big star, destined to sit on top of the tree. With careful fingers, he unpacked the star. Unwrapped the star and marveled at the way the light got caught in the golden metal. Then, just when he was standing on his tiptoes, keys were jammed into the door to the flat. Instantly, Yamato swiveled around and watched how the door swung open and you emerged from the hallway. On your jacket was a thin layer of snow already melting away and in your hands were several bags with presents and grocery shopping. You always found a reason to somehow buy a little bit of non-perishable food, “just in case”.

“Hey there!” Your cheeks were flushed from the cold outside. Then, your eyes fell on the Christmas tree. “Oh my.”

_Oh my._ Not good. Yamato’s muscles tensed. It was too much. Too bright, too colorful. Simply too much. But before he could do more than take a single step forward, you stepped into the living room, smiling brightly and eyes locked onto the Christmas tree.

“Turn the lights on,” you demanded, voice silent and soft like the snowfall outside. “Please.”

He didn’t dare do more than that, reaching for the remote and clicking the On-button. Instantly, the electrical candles flickered to life.

The change was almost… magical.

Night already fell over the town, thus, when the lights came on, the entire tree was lit up like a beacon. The colors popped, the tinsel glittered even more, the ornaments were slowly turning and swaying as you stepped closer, eyes wide in wonder and a smile still plastered to your face.

“It’s beautiful.” One of your hands brushed over a feather of tinsel. “And so bright. I love it.”

“Really?” The question was faster out than Yamato could stop it. “It’s not… too much?”

“I love it, just the way it is. It’s perfect.” Your eyes wandered up and down, taking in every detail. When your vision fell on the sillier ornaments, your smile widened and the special wrinkles in the corner of your eyes creased. The ones Yamato loved so much to see, because he knew that this smile was born off genuine happiness. “And look. The lights. The tinsel. The ornaments.”

“Everything?”

When you nodded again, Yamato could feel how an invisible weight was lifted off his shoulders. Thank the gods. You loved it, loved it so much you couldn’t take your eyes off of the tree, even when he got onto his toes again to put up the very last piece.

The star on the very top of the Christmas tree joined the glittering and blinking of the other decorations, while Yamato took a few steps back and searched for your hand. When he found it, he squeezed your fingers and smiled himself when he felt you squeeze back.

No more words were exchanged. You didn’t need to.

Yamato stood corrected when you turned to him, your eyes sparkling like the day he confessed his love to you.

“You did great with the decorating,” you softly said. “Perfect for our first Christmas at home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ed by the most amazing Chisie <3


End file.
